STEERING COMMITTEE FOR CULTURE, HERITAGE AND LANDSCAPE (CDCPP)
CDCPP (2013) 4 Strasbourg, 25 January 2013
3rd meeting of the Bureau
Strasbourg, 7-8 February 2013
DRAFT RECOMMENDATION OF THE COMMITTEE OF MINISTERS TO MEMBER STATES ON INTERCULTURAL INTEGRATION
DOCUMENT FOR DISCUSSION AND DECISION
Draft decision
The Bureau:
- is invited to examine the draft Recommendation of the Committee of Ministers on intercultural integration and to decide to transmit it to the CDCPP Plenary session for adoption.
Recommendation CM/Rec(2013) XXX
of the Committee of Ministers to member states
on intercultural integration
(Adopted by the Committee of Ministers on XXX 2013
at the XXX meeting of the Ministers’ Deputies)
The Committee of Ministers, under the terms of Article 15.b of the Statute of the Council of Europe,
Considering that the aim of the Council of Europe is to achieve greater unity between its members and that this aim may be pursued, in particular, through common action in the fields of migration, integration and community relations;
Having regard to the pioneering work of the Council of Europe in the field of intercultural dialogue, in particular the “White paper on intercultural dialogue” which underlines the importance of creating spaces for cross-cultural exchange and debate, facilitating access to and exercise of citizenship and fostering intercultural competence, particularly at the local level;
With reference to the report of the Group of Eminent Persons of the Council of Europe “Living Together: Combining Diversity and Freedom in 21st-Century Europe” which emphasises the key role of cities in managing diversity and fostering a pluralistic identity and creating open societies by bringing members of different groups into close and constructive contact, and showcases cities that have adopted an intercultural approach to integration;
Underlining that managing diversity in full respect for the principles of democracy and human rights is a common challenge for European societies, and indeed world-wide, and that migrant integration strategies are ineffective and unsustainable without adequate diversity strategies;
Noting that access to citizenship, education, public services, the labour market and cultural life can only be equitable if governance and institutions are designed for culturally diverse communities and managed by culturally competent individuals and teams;
Recognising that a solid body of research both in Europe and worldwide has demonstrated the value of diversity for human and social development, economic growth, productivity, creativity and innovation and that these benefits of diversity can be realised on condition that adequate policies are in place to prevent conflict and foster equal opportunities and community cohesion;
Emphasising that the Council of Europe supports and facilitates the search for novel approaches to diversity management that remedy shortcomings of past policies and enable the realisation of diversity advantage and that such an approach has been developed through a process of structured policy review, peer learning and evaluation in the context of “Intercultural cities” – a joint action of the Council of Europe and the European Commission, and has been called intercultural integration;
Considering that the intercultural integration approach builds upon Council of Europe instruments and standards in the fields of cultural diversity, the protection of minority cultures, intercultural competence, multi-lingualism, intercultural education, the fight against racism and xenophobia, the prevention of hate speech, the role of media in fostering of a culture of tolerance, the interaction between migrants and receiving societies, and the intercultural competence of social services;
Acknowledging that cities are at the front line of integration and diversity management and laboratories for policy innovation, and that they make an important contribution to social cohesion by adopting an intercultural approach to integration and diversity management;
Noting Recommendation 261 (2009)1 Intercultural cities of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities which points that strong inclusive intercultural cities, which have succeeded in encouraging citizens of diverse origins to identify with their city, demonstrate a capacity for innovation and are able to use the resources, skills and creativity of their populations to raise the city’s attractiveness and to bring new investment and job opportunities;
Recommends to member states to
Bring the intercultural integration model, and the tools which have been designed to facilitate its implementation and measure impact (available on www.coe.int/interculturalcities), to the attention of local and regional authorities, as well as relevant national and local institutions, organisations and networks, via the appropriate national channels;
Facilitate the dissemination of the “Step by Step Guide to the intercultural city” appended to this Recommendation, including via its translation into their official languages;
Encourage the implementation of the intercultural integration model at the local level and support the setting up of city networks for the exchange of experience and learning in this respect;
Take the intercultural integration model into account while revising and further developing national migrant integration policies, or policies for intercultural dialogue and diversity management.
Appendix to Recommendation CM/Rec(2013) XXX
of the Committee of Ministers to member states
on intercultural integration
THE INTERCULTURAL CITY STEP BY STEP
Practical guide for applying the urban model of intercultural integration
I Introduction
- Who is this guide intended for?
- Purpose of the guide
- Structure of the guide
II Intercultural cities: concept
- Genesis of the intercultural cities concept
- The challenges addressed by the intercultural cities concept
- Definition of an intercultural city
III Building an intercultural city
- Developing a vision for the intercultural city
a) leadership and commitment
b) diversity-friendly discourse
- Preparing an intercultural strategy
a) establish management and leadership structures
b) map intercultural issues and challenges facing the city
- Building the intercultural strategy
a) Consultation and participation
b) Results-based accountability as a tool for building and monitoring the strategy
IV Elements of an intercultural urban strategy
1. Developing a positive attitude to diversity
2. Assessing the city functions through the “intercultural lens”
a) education
b) the public realm
c) housing and neighbourhoods
d) public services and civic administration
e) business and economy
f) sport and the arts
3. Mediation and conflict resolution
4. Languages
5. Media strategy
6. International relations
7. Evidence-based approach
8. Intercultural awareness training
9. Welcoming newcomers
10. Intercultural governance
V Monitoring implementation and measuring progress
I Introduction
1. Who is this guide intended for?
Most countries in Europe are facing the growing challenge of international migration and it falls primarily upon cities to design and implement integration policies that foster community cohesion and turn migration into a factor of development rather than a threat.
This guide is designed for city leaders and practitioners wishing to learn from the “Intercultural cities” experiment, a three-year pilot programme run by the Council of Europe and the European Commission, in developing an intercultural approach to integration.
The Intercultural cities model, which has been derived from the complex process of the programme, is not a ‘one size fits all’ with a rigidly pre-determined sequence of events and procedures. As such, this guide contains recommended actions and suggestions on how, when and in what order they might best be achieved. However, what we expect of any city embarking on the Intercultural cities agenda is that it is already a confident, competent and independently-minded entity that does not need to be led by the hand but is able to creatively adapt the general concepts and actions contained in this guide to local circumstances. We also appreciate that no city embarking on the process is a tabula rasa and that each starts from a different place and is on its own unique trajectory of development. This document is therefore not an instruction manual but rather a menu and an aide-memoire.
2. Purpose of this guide
Despite the enormous complexity of diverse communities and the potential conflicts involved, cities can manage diversity and can even benefit hugely from what migrants and minorities can offer to the community. To do this, they need to review a range of institutions, services and policies and create the appropriate governance structures and mechanisms to remove obstacles and enhance the integration of migrants and minorities and their contribution to the development of the city. This guide gives city policy-makers and practitioners ideas and tips on how to deal with these tasks.
Before reading this document it is import that all key participants are familiar with the basic principles of Intercultural Cities. At the very least this should include:
- the Council of Europe White Paper on Intercultural Dialogue “Living Together as Equals in Dignity”[1]
- the results of the European Year on Intercultural Dialogue[2]
- Intercultural Cities: towards a model for intercultural integration[3]
- Intercultural Cities 2008-9: Final Report[4]
3. Structure of this Guide
This guide is conceived as a supplement to the range of documents and tools developed by the Intercultural cities pilot and is available at www.coe.int/interculturalcities. It provides a brief outline of the concept of intercultural integration, provides advice on steps and measures which could help cities develop an intercultural strategy, and illustrates the elements of such a strategy with analytical questions, suggestions and examples of practice in various European cities. Finally, it deals with the issue of monitoring the implementation of the intercultural strategy.
Whenever possible, the guide refers to documents and other resources which could help the reader delve into specific issues and aspects in greater detail.
II Intercultural cities: concept
1. Genesis of the Intercultural cities concept
The Intercultural cities concept originated in research carried out by Comedia[5], which analysed the links between urban change and cultural diversity and introduced a new conceptual framework for the management of diversity in urban contexts.
The Intercultural Cities (ICC) Programme, launched in 2008 as a joint Council of Europe/ European Commission pilot initiative, took up Comedia’s concept and set out to identify strategies and policies which could help cities implement that concept and work with diversity as a factor of development.
The programme sought to widen and deepen the parameters of the discussion of these issues beyond the news headlines and into the realities of how people live together and create their cities on a daily basis. Significantly, it set out to propose practical policies and methods which cities across Europe might adopt and from which they could benefit.
Eleven pilot cities[6] engaged in the programme to test and further develop the analytical and policy tools involved in the Intercultural cities concept such as the ‘intercultural lens’, ‘the governance models for intercultural development’, the ‘Intercultural City strategy’ and ‘the Intercultural city INDEX’. Nine other cities[7] joined in 2011 to benefit from peer and expert support for their intercultural policy-making.
An important difference between Intercultural cities and classical international learning initiatives is that it is not restricted to one particular peer group, city department or specialist area. Meaningful and lasting change is more likely to occur when organisations and people are mobilised across the board towards achieving a vision rather than just technical changes. Very often an active department finds out about a successful project in another city on the subject of, say, safety or libraries, and imports it successfully, but the overall impact is limited because otherwise business continues as usual. The intercultural cities ethos is about mobilising politicians, civil servants, business and professional people, citizen groups and even media towards a common goal - creating an inclusive city that is proud of and strengthened by its diversity.
Another key aspect of the intercultural cities approach is that it seeks to deal with the root causes of inequality, discrimination and lack of cohesion - the natural tendency of in-groups, defined by ethnic or cultural criteria - to secure benefits for the members of the group at the expense of other groups. Interculturalism is the attempt to design policies and institutions that minimise the consolidation of ethnically defined in-groups.
2. The challenges addressed by the Intercultural city concept
Cities across Europe and the world are dealing with an increasingly diverse population as people move across borders or from the countryside into urban areas in search for jobs and opportunities. Other cities are struggling to create cohesive communities including national minorities, especially in areas of recent regional conflict.
Cultural differences due to migration or the presence of minority groups can, if left unmanaged, undermine the city’s sense of community and identity, and weaken its ability to respond to challenges, adapt to change, attract investment and grow. In the worst case scenario, cultural differences can lead to paralysing forms of conflict and even violence.
Mainstream approaches to the management of diversity have reached their limit. They either ignore diversity (as with guest-worker approaches), deny diversity (as with assimilationist approaches), or overemphasise diversity and thereby reinforce the barriers between culturally distinct groups (as with multiculturalism). Such inadequacies are due to a misconception of the cultural dimension of integration – a simplistic or biased understanding of culture and diversity, an over-emphasis on difference leading to the marginalisation of migrant cultures and the perpetuation of poverty and exclusion through ethnic ghettoes.
Interculturality recognises the importance of culture in building cohesive communities, accessing rights and realising opportunities. It emphasises the need to enable each culture to survive and flourish but also underlines the right of all cultures to contribute to the cultural landscape of the society in which they are present. Interculturality derives from the understanding that cultures thrive only in contact with other cultures, not in isolation. It seeks to reinforce inter-cultural interaction as a means of building trust and strengthening the fabric of the community.
The focus of the Intercultural cities approach is on cultural diversity but its principles and methods apply equally to gender, age, profession, ability and other types of diversity. To apply the Intercultural cities approach effectively, it is necessary to take advantage of all kinds of diversity and foster the mixing of people from all sorts of backgrounds, occupations, histories, positions, and across gender and age.
3. Definition of Intercultural cities
Intercultural cities have a diverse population including people of different nationalities and origins, and with different languages or religions/beliefs. Most citizens regard diversity as a resource not a problem and accept that all cultures change as they encounter each other in the public arena. The city officials publicly advocate respect for diversity and a pluralistic city identity. The city actively combats prejudice and discrimination and ensures equal opportunities for all by adapting its governance structures, institutions and services to the needs of a diverse population, without compromising the principles of human rights, democracy and the rule of law. In partnership with business, civil society and public service professionals, the intercultural city develops a range of policies and actions to encourage more mixing and interaction between diverse groups. The high level of trust and social cohesion help to prevent conflicts and violence, increase policy effectiveness and make the city attractive for people and investors alike.
- The research evidence for the intercultural city
Kseniya Khovanova-Rubicondo and Dino Pinelli undertook a review of the scientific literature in the field of diversity so as to understand whether there is sufficient evidence to support the intercultural cities approach. Given its novelty, this concept has not been widely analysed by social scientists. Yet, a number of studies have been conducted, focusing on the key elements, concepts, and settings of the Intercultural cities approach. This includes the growth, productivity and employment impact of diversity; governance structures and processes; urban space planning; housing and neighbourhood policies; security and policing policies.
The main findings are reproduced below and the full paper can be found at
http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/cultureheritage/culture/Source/Cities/Review.doc
a) The diversity advantage
An established literature provides evidence of the impact of diversity on companies and organisations. Empirical results tend to show that demographic diversity may reduce social cohesion and increase the probability of socio-emotional conflict. Only when they correlate positively with cognitive diversity do the benefits of cognitive diversity more than outbalance the costs of demographic diversity. Cognitive diversity refers to the variety of skills, preferences and knowledge.
It is generally recognised that immigration produces a wide range of economic effects in host countries, both positive and negative. The general finding is that communities with a higher degree of ethnic diversity are less willing to pool their resources for public goods provision. However, in the case of well-defined markets, where people understand the value of contributing to the costs of the services they use, there is no efficiency loss as a result of heterogeneity. Several classical writings have linked diversity with urban agglomeration and highlighted the fact that the functioning and thriving of urban clusters rely on the variety of people, factors, goods and services. A more multicultural city environment makes the native population more productive. The positive effects are stronger when only second and third generation immigrants are taken into account, which suggests that the positive effects are reaped only when some degree of integration between communities takes place.
The complementarity of skills between native and foreign-born workers plays a key role in the literature. Even if they have the same level of education, problem-solving, creativity and adaptability may differ between native and foreign-born workers with the result that there may be a reciprocal learning process. Recent OECD studies have also underlined immigrants’ contributions to economic growth. It has been noticed in particular that immigrants contribute to the economies of their host countries by introducing new skills and competencies and via the direct creation of new businesses in a wide range of sectors and occupations including innovative areas.
The Leadership Diversity in the Nonprofit Sector: Baby Steps, Big Strides, and Bold Stances report by Carleton University’s Chris Fredette[8] based on three surveys of more than 420 organisations in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) finds that the more diverse a board the better it works by, for example, safeguarding and fulfilling the mission of the organisation and enhancing fiduciary oversight. Board diversity also improves stakeholder relationships, increases the organisation’s responsiveness to the community and their clients, and brings fresh perspectives to decision-making. The report also finds that once a critical mass of 30% leadership diversity is reached, there is an increase in reported benefits.
Despite the overwhelming advantages of leadership diversity, the research found that visible minorities continue to be underrepresented on non-profit boards in the GTA. While visible minorities make up 40% of the GTA’s population, of the 4,254 board positions examined only 15.6% are held by visible minorities.
The report includes a number of recommendations for organisations that wish to strengthen their board, including understanding and communicating the benefits of leadership diversity and aligning diversity efforts to the organisation’s mission and mandate.
b) The conditions: tapping the potential benefits of diversity
Research literature has provided a large amount of positive evidence regarding the effects of diversity on economic performance and policies. It has also made it clear that diversity entails a continuous trade-off between costs and benefits.
A wide range of literature has looked at the impact of residential segregation ondiversity. If contact theory holds, residential segregation would imply worse socio-economic outcomes.
These costs and benefits depend not only on the number and relative sizes of cultural groups living in the city but also their degree of integration and the institutional and political environment that encourages or undermines this integration. It is up to city managers and administrators to create the appropriate conditions to amplify the social and economic benefits of heterogeneous communities.
First generation migrants living in ethnic enclaves tend to have a higher income and better living conditions than their peers outside such enclaves. Such homogenous ethnic enclaves may however persist over time and become detrimental to their inhabitants. This happens because the enclave acts as a barrier to economic and social integration in the host society, as migrants tend to not develop connections and economic relations with the outside. The role of policy would be to intervene so as to break (or avoid the formation of) diversity fault lines that might emerge endogenously from individual choices. This would require action at different levels and in a multiplicity of domains - schools, workplaces and urban public spaces - to foster encounters and mixing across ethnic and other social boundaries.
Institutions, values and governance mechanisms have an important role to play in relating diversity to socio-economic outcomes. At the cities and team level, several strands of research underline the importance of tolerance and openness to differences.
In sociology, Richard Florida argues that cities where differences are appreciated are able to attract creative people and will therefore become more creative and more innovative. In his view, tolerance becomes the ultimate driver of thriving, creative and innovative cities. In psychology, Homan finds that the disruptive effects of diversity fault lines on the operational efficiency of working teams can be overcome by convincing the team members of the value of diversity.
Overall, it could appear that when backed by efficient institutions, diversity may indeed serve as a valuable asset for society. In particular, democratic institutions and a tolerant environment that allow differences to express themselves and interact freely appear to be prerequisites for reaping the benefits of diversity.
A wide range of literature, mainly in political sciences, suggests that this may not be sufficient and also highlights the limitations of representative democracy in accounting for the multiplicity and complexity of interests, views and identities in our complex societies. The concept of governance therefore comes to the fore as a broad notion that encompasses and transcends that of government and allows for a pluralism of actors, including non-official (profit and non-profit making) organisations along with government bodies, in the processes of framing (and then managing) public policies and activities. The need is therefore for more open and participatory democracy processes that allow other actors (civil society organisations, NGOs and grassroots movements) representing specific legitimate interests to have a voice.
The city appears, once again, to be the most appropriate level where new forms and types of participatory and inclusive policy processes can be designed and implemented.
c) What type of diversity policies?
Sen argues that the emphasis on religion, by downplaying non-religious values and affiliations, has strengthened the position of the religious establishments and increased the sense of distance between communities. Empirical research at country level also shows important examples of such counter-effects.
Research reveals that events and festivals to promote intercultural dialogue, when framed in ethnic terms (i.e. organising a festival for a specific minority), tend to lead to a decrease in community involvement and result in lower levels of intercultural relations in the neighbourhood. This happens because ethnically-framed festivals tend to promote the idea that the communities to which they are dedicated are cultural 'others', ultimately reinforcing rather than weakening cultural distinctions and barriers. It is therefore important, for all the above reasons, that diversity policies and practices acknowledge the multidimensional nature of diversity and use non-ethnic perspectives, going beyond ethnic boundaries. Policies and practices should be designed to promote informal encounters and help local groups focus on other-than-ethnic axes of difference. Encounters do not necessarily need to be formal; they can take place in environments such as churches, sports, schools, cafes, streets and all sorts of urban spaces.
An important amount of literature has stressed the relevance of how power relations structure and influence diversity outcomes. Bourdieu is a classical reference. In Bourdieu's views, the dominating class has not only economic but also social and symbolic capital and uses this to set social norms, to which the other parts of society are called on to relate and against which they are measured. Through this mechanism, (cultural) attitudes, values and behaviours reflect and ultimately underpin the perpetuation of socio-economic hierarchies. Diversity policies and initiatives therefore need to consider and address actual and potential inequality issues (for instance stemming from people’s socio-economic backgrounds).
d) Dealing with diversity: The Intercultural cities approach
Janssens and Zanoni provide a useful four-fold categorisation of traditional models: the segregation model, the assimilation model, the marginalisation model and the multicultural model and consider the shortcomings of each. The focus should be on fostering (formal and informal) encounters and mobilising citizens on issues of common interests that cut across ethnic and social boundaries while setting out conditions for fair and equitable negotiations. The city, rather than the nation state, increasingly appears to be the appropriate level for dealing with this task. Banerjee writes of the need for ‘convivial cities’ and Amin speaks of participatory and open-ended engagement to sustain ‘micro publics of negotiation’.
What is evident from the literature is that institutional and public administration structures in host countries are best placed to develop the capacities to influence the effects of immigration on society by increasing the benefits of heterogeneous communities and reducing their negative effects.
The Intercultural cities approach is an attempt to build a new model to tackle this challenge.
5. Normative basis for the intercultural city
The intercultural cities concept as presented in this guide has several sources of legitimacy: research evidence, city practice, and international legal instruments and documents. This section lists the instruments, primarily those adopted by the Council of Europe, which underpin the principles of Intercultural integration.
a) Key documents on intercultural diversity management
White Paper on Intercultural Dialogue, Council of Europe, 2008
Resolution 280 (2009) - Intercultural cities
Recommendation 261 (2009) – Intercultural Cities
Recommendation of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe R (92)12 on community relations
Recommendation CM/Rec(2011)1 of the Committee of Ministers to member states
on interaction between migrants and receiving societies
Building Migrants’ Belonging through Positive Interactions: A Guide for Policy-Makers and Practitioners (appendix 4 to document CM(2010)172)
b) Intercultural education
Recommendation CM/Rec(2008)4 of the Committee of Ministers to member states on strengthening the integration of children of migrants and of immigrant background
The role of schools in intercultural education, by Maurice Coles and Bob Vincent[9]
Recommendation CM/Rec(2008)4 of the Committee of Ministers to member states on strengthening the integration of children of migrants and of immigrant background
c) Housing and participation
Resolution 183 (1987) on foreigners in regional and local communities
Resolution 270 (2008) on improving the integration of migrants through local housing policies
Recommendation 252 (2008) on improving the integration of migrants through local housing policies
The European Convention on the Participation of Foreigners in Public Life at Local Level (1992)
Resolution 92 (2000) on the participation of foreign residents in local public life
Recommendation 76 (2000) on the participation of foreign residents in local public life
Resolution 181 (2004) on “A pact for the integration and participation of people of immigrant origin in Europe’s towns, cities and regions”
Recommendation 153 (2004) on “A pact for the integration and participation of people of immigrant origin in Europe’s towns, cities and regions”
Recommendation CM/Rec(2011)1 of the Committee of Ministers to member states
on interaction between migrants and receiving societies
Building Migrants’ Belonging through Positive Interactions: A Guide for Policy-Makers and Practitioners (appendix 4 to document CM(2010)172, key Recommendation 2.2)
d) Intercultural approaches to public services
Recommendation (2006)18 of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe on health services in a multicultural society
Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe, Recommendation 194 (2006)1 on effective access to social rights for immigrants
Resolution 281 (2009) on equality and diversity in local authority employment and service provision
Recommendation 262 (2009) on equality and diversity in local authority employment and service provision
Recommendation Rec(2004)2 of the Committee of Ministers to member states on the access of non-nationals to employment in the public sector
European Social Charter
e) Employment and labour market
Recommendation CM/Rec(2011)2 of the Committee of Ministers to member states
on validating migrants’ skills
Ethnic diversity and entrepreneurship in Oslo and Drammen(Two related case studies on the application of intercultural approaches in the Norwegian context) [10]
The Contribution of Outsiders to Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Cities: The UK Caseby Lia Ghilardi [11]
Recommendation CM/Rec(2008)10 of the Committee of Ministers to member states on improving access of migrants and persons of immigrant background to employment
f) Mediation and conflict resolution
Recommendation 304 (2011) on meeting the challenge of inter-faith and intercultural tensions at local level
g) Language
Recommendation CM/Rec(2008)4 of the Committee of Ministers to member states on strengthening the integration of children of migrants and of immigrant background
European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages
Concept Paper: The linguistic and educational integration of children and adolescents from migrant backgrounds[12]
Context and policy: Adult migrant integration policies: Principles and implementation[13]
h) Relations with media
Recommendation of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe R (97) 21 on the media and the promotion of a culture of tolerance
Recommendation of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe CM/Rec(2007)2 on media pluralism and diversity of media content
i) An open and international outlook
Co-development and migrants working for development in their countries of origin (CM/ Rec(2007)10)
Recommendation Rec(2006)9 of the Committee of Ministers to member states on the admission, rights and obligations of migrant students and co-operation with countries of origin
CM/Rec (84)7 on the maintenance of migrants' cultural links with their countries of origin and leisure facilities
j) Welcoming new arrivals
Recommendation CM/Rec(2011)1 of the Committee of Ministers to member states
on interaction between migrants and receiving societies
Building Migrants’ Belonging through Positive Interactions: A Guide for Policy-Makers and Practitioners (appendix 4 to document CM(2010)172, key Recommendation 2.1)
III Building an Intercultural city
1. Developing a vision for the intercultural city
If people and resources are to be mobilised towards intercultural developments, a change in the mindset of local leaders – both elected and in civil society – will be necessary. This means that the city must ask itself ‘If our aim were to create a society which was not only free, egalitarian and harmonious but also one in which there was productive interaction and co-operation between cultures, what would we need to do more of or do differently?’ And in particular, ‘What kind of leaders (political and municipal) and citizens would this require? What new institutions, networks and physical infrastructure would it imply?’
We call this building the city’s intercultural vision or looking at the city afresh through an intercultural lens’.
In the Intercultural city approach, the development of a cultural sensitivity, the encouragement of intercultural interaction and mixing, is not seen as the responsibility of a special department or officer but as a strategic objective and an essential aspect of the functioning of all city departments and services.
The Intercultural city approach is not about ADDING new policies, structures or initiatives (indeed, many urban problems are due to an excess of rules, structures and controls) but revisiting what the city already does through “the intercultural lens”. Thus, the intercultural city does not need new expenditure – and could well lead to savings and more efficiency by focusing efforts on clearly defined and shared goals, eliminating duplication, rivalry, turf thinking and clientelism.
Several elements are essential to begin developing a vision for the intercultural city:
a) Political leadership and commitment:
The first and possibly most important of these blocks is leadership. Probably all studies and texts on city-building have come to a similar conclusion and its validity is difficult to contest.
City leaders are often caught between the need to manage diversity, and encourage it as a part of the city development strategy, and voters’ quiet hostility to migrants and foreigners, fuelled by xenophobic discourse.
The intercultural city cannot emerge without a leadership which explicitly embraces the value of diversity while upholding the values and constitutional principles of European society. It takes political courage to confront voters with their fears and prejudice, allow for these concerns to be addressed in the public debate, and invest taxpayer money in initiatives and services which promote intercultural integration. Such an approach is politically risky but then leadership is about leading, not simply about vote-counting. The public statements of the Mayor of Reggio Emilia in favour of “cultural contamination” are in this sense exceptional and emblematic in fostering a way of thinking which recognises the value of diversity for the local community.
Statements and speeches by city leaders, declarations by the city council, programmatic documents etc. are the main vehicles for expressing a positive commitment to diversity. This commitment needs to be made as visible and public as possible and constantly reiterated, particularly on symbolic occasions such as political gatherings or celebrations of city-wide importance.
For instance, Marcel la Rose, the District Mayor of Amsterdam South-East, says he believes that all great metropolises must operate in a state of flux if they are to survive and thrive in the uncertainties of globalisation. This means having one foot in the West and one in the developing world, one foot in the rural and one in the urban, acknowledging that migration is increasingly circular and that people and economies are transnational and transcultural. He argues that Bijlmer is now a leading example of what a recent influential book described as the ‘arrival city’[14].
Such a place is also a challenge to the western concept of the rationally planned and functional city. They (and there can be fewer more extreme examples than Bijlmer) have been a disaster for poor and migrant people because they have bred a culture of dependency and marginality and a passive workforce waiting to be called upon if the economy requires it. It is not surprising that people have sought to bend or subvert the rules in such a situation and that alternative lifestyles and grey economies have emerged. But far from such activities being prohibited, he believes they can be the source of new creativity and innovation, which a city like Amsterdam desperately needs. Inspired by another book[15], he makes a distinction between ‘planners’, who impose idealistic but unrealistic solutions from above, and ‘searchers’, who look for bottom-up solutions to specific needs. He sees himself as one of the latter.
He believes the people of Amsterdam South-East are naturally sensitive to a cosmopolitan and intercultural approach and thinks the time is right for the area to join a project like ICC. No longer preoccupied with itself and inward-looking, it is time for the district to start looking outside for opportunities. He believes the area has done little to explore and capitalise upon the diasporic connections and skills of its mixed population. Mr La Rose wants cultures to mingle and is aware of the paradox that by using cultures for social and economic advantage you may be reinforcing differences. Surinam people feel that ASE is traditionally a part of their heritage and are resentful of Turkish and Moroccans coming in. As he sees it, these newcomers are taking a risk by immersing themselves in a different culture and this needs to be encouraged.
b) Develop public awareness of the diversity advantage
Closely related to the question of leadership is the issue of political discourse – understood in the broad sense of symbolic communication - the way in which public perceptions of diversity are shaped by language, symbols, themes, dates, and other elements of the collective life of the community. Cultural artefacts symbolising the identity of cultures are often first to be destroyed in violent inter-community conflicts – they can convey a powerful message about the plurality of the city identity.
Communication and public debate are an essential element of local diversity strategies. Diversity needs to be publicly recognised as an asset and unfounded myths and prejudices about minorities need to be addressed to ensure the sustainability of integration policies and foster social trust and cohesion.
Communicating about migration and diversity is a complex task and the results are difficult to assess. Lack of knowledge about the reality of diversity, migration and integration, expressions of xenophobic and racist ideas in the public arena and media, misinformation and misperceptions undermine integration efforts and community cohesion. Political leaders committed to intercultural integration need to underline the value of diversity for city development in written and spoken statements, interviews and the social media, and mobilise a large network of organisations and individuals able to relay this discourse among the general public.
Exemple
The Barcelona City Council has identified prejudices and stereotypes that are commonly associated with the local migrant community. It is implementing an initiative to educate its citizens and combat negative perceptions of migrant groups. This project is part of Barcelona City Council’s Intercultural Plan. In addition to the political support it receives from the city's authorities, it is also backed by 200 local organisations and 3,000 individuals. All of them contribute to the implementation of a policy which promotes and manages the peaceful coexistence of an increasingly diverse population. The initiative includes the provision of free training for local players who work with migrant communities; the dissemination of an educational comic strip illustrated by local artist Miguel Gallardo; the distribution of a handbook for local players who work in the field of social cohesion and intercultural integration; as well as the creation of a website which serves as a resource centre on policies implemented to combat prejudice and stereotypes. http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/cultureheritage/culture/Cities/Newsletter/newsletter15/barcelona_en.asp
Public awareness campaigns can be helpful in increasing popular support for diversity and understanding of the diversity advantage, provided they are one element of a broader strategy and that they are well prepared. In addition to their communication impact, campaigns help focus the efforts of leaders, officials, associations and other partners on a common goal, a shared concern, beyond sectorial interests and cleavages, and therefore help ensure the coherence, effectiveness and sustainability of intercultural policies.
Below are some recommendations based on the SPARDA project run by the Council of Europe and 7 cities with EU support:
Leaders and staff need to be very well informed about the diversity facts of their city and how diversity has influenced the local labour market, economy, services, and cultural life. There are many tools that can be used to build this knowledge: contextual analysis, mapping or surveying and identification of success stories, to name but a few. Ideally such research needs to be undertaken locally by professionals used to engaging in these issues in the context of universities, think tanks, etc.
Collaborating with local migrant groups and civil society organisations should provide most of the cities with a sound basis for gathering expertise with which they can then build policies and discourses on interculturality and the diversity advantage.
The focus and message of the campaign should be developed together with key stakeholders and be very clear and sharp.
Campaign planning should include context, audiences, messages, activities, responsibilities and budgets.
Cities need to have a basic understanding of communication principles, for instance the difference between messaging and slogans, the function of each and how each can help reinforce and convey a strong public discourse. Cities need to improve their public campaigning skills so they understand the use of techniques and tools to help them build more effective activities and campaigns. It is worth noting that whilst this technical knowledge is necessary it cannot replace a political vision on the subject.
Campaign activities must be able to convey the messages to target audiences, especially activities which encourage human contact and human experiences. Campaign messages based on personal stories work better than statistics or abstract statements.
Campaigns receive wide media coverage when they provide the basis for debate: political visions, numbers, strong and moving stories. Cities need to learn how to gather this kind of data and communicate it strategically to the media.
Cities need to be aware of the resources that such initiatives require, to campaign wisely as well as to deal with the administrative and financial obligations entailed in EU funding. Campaigns need local expertise on the technical aspects of communication and on the issue, and administrative support needs to be effective.
Regular surveys are indispensable in assessing the impact of diversity campaigns and intercultural policies on public opinion.
2. Preparing an Intercultural strategy
Intercultural city strategies cannot be limited to incremental approaches that build solely on what has gone before (though it will be necessary to build on obvious city strengths and good practices). They need to be transformative; aiming to fundamentally change civic culture, the public sphere and institutions themselves. What is sought here is a qualitative change in relationships between authorities, institutions, people and groups of people.
The common theme in city strategies and the primary focus is enabling and supporting the exchange of ideas and cultural interaction as a spur to innovation, growth and the bonding of cultures, peoples and authorities for the benefit of all.
Intercultural city strategies need to build on spheres and activities where relationships are positive but should not ignore or fail to address intercultural conflict. Conflict is to be welcomed as inevitable and, if handled well, can be a source of creativity and lead to mutual learning and growth for all participants, including city authorities.
a) Establish leadership and management structures
i) Appoint a political champion: city-wide intercultural vision-building offers an opportunity to identify intercultural ‘champions’ across the city system, who can act as ambassadors and agents of change in their own right, extending the reach of the initiative. Past experience has shown that in some cities the deputy mayor adopts a high profile and a hands-on role while in others they prefer to take a back seat. The only prescription here is that there must be a clear connection between the project and the political authority of the city.
ii) Appoint an official as Co-ordinator and principal ICC management officer. Such an officer would ideally be directly answerable to the politician in charge of the ICC strategy but could also be placed in the relevant department; in some cases a partnership of two officials has worked well. In Oslo the city’s diversity expert works alongside the expert on education (which is the city’s priority theme for intercultural action). In Neukölln the diversity expert works alongside the international relations specialist.
iii) As well as politicians and official executive leadership, there will be committed and interested individuals in different departments and divisions of the city, among officials providing services to the communities and within NGOs and communities. These individuals can be brought together in a Champions Forum or support group to assist in the development of the intercultural city strategy and assist and advise on implementation, including giving feedback on the practical impact of implementation on the ground.
Individual champions may be considered to take forward specific strands and projects of the intercultural strategy, to develop and spread leadership of the initiative more widely. Forum members may also be provided with specific training and skills development to form a critical mass and resource for interventions, for example, on intercultural mediation.
iv) 
Form an internal Task Force (TF) with widespread departmental representation. The people involved will come from various departments, possibly also NGOs and professional groups. They will be chosen not necessarily for their hierarchical position or job description but because of strong personal interest and commitment to intercultural matters. The project must not be managed solely by people or offices that are already established experts in diversity and integration. It must reach out to departments that have an influence on interculturality but have not yet put it into action.
b) Define intercultural actors, issues and the challenges facing the city
Shortage of data should not prevent city authorities from quickly generating knowledge and evidence that is good enough to develop a strategy and take action. A ‘rapid appraisal’ approach may be helpful, where key experts, stakeholders and those working in and with communities are consulted and brought together to produce a map of salient key issues for the city. Cities can tap into the wealth of informal knowledge that is held in communities, among NGOs, those working within communities and city professionals providing services to different communities, including cultural officers, social services, and housing and education officials. There may also be scope for tapping into the knowledge of other city staff from minority communities.
A mapping of intercultural issues should not ignore the needs and aspirations of the host population experiencing socio-economic disadvantage, who may also feel discriminated against and marginalised. There is wide evidence that these groups can feel ‘left behind’ in a focus on minority communities and this can exacerbate intercultural tensions. The Intercultural city strategy should explicitly consider what response is given to these groups and whether their needs are also addressed.
While issues will be city-specific, common issues that may generate intercultural tension and problems include housing, schooling and education provision, employment and faith related issues e.g. the establishment of places of worship. There may be opportunities for enhancing cultural contribution and interaction in the cultural sector and in the business sector given the entrepreneurialism of many migrant minority communities.
i) Conduct a preliminary internal review: every city has a unique blend of policies and practices, influenced by its national context, history and current priorities. It is important to ask the question ‘Why do we do things this way and not that way?’ This will be an opportunity to familiarise members of the Task Force with the intercultural city concept and encourage them to consider the impact of current city policies on mutual perceptions and relationships between communities in the city.
If public authorities do not have adequate information about the organisations, initiatives, events, decisions, agreements, results and data which are relevant to the intercultural integration agenda, it may be helpful to commission an initial mapping to provide a basis for the constitution of the Champions forum and other working groups, and structure the debate. Such mapping has been, for instance, carried out by an expert at the request of Limassol (Cyprus) and has proven very useful in identifying people, organisations, issues, achievements and challenges[16].
ii) Identify intercultural innovators and bridge-builders and engage them in the intercultural strategy development and implementation
The Intercultural strategy will certainly build upon previous integration work carried out by the city and on relationships established with migrant and minority organisations. While such organisations are a key resource and pillar for local intercultural policies, the natural propensity of many of them is to advocate policies, initiatives and resources supporting the expression and transmission of the culture of the community they represent and therefore act as cultural gate-keepers. The fostering of intercultural relations, trust and co-operation requires an emphasis on structures, action and resources which bring people together across cultural boundaries. For this to happen, it is essential to involve people who have an understanding of more than one culture, a cultural openness and a vision of intercultural development. All organisations include such people, and it is important to identify them and empower them by inviting them to meetings and working groups and assigning specific tasks to them.
Most city officials dealing with diversity and integration issues probably know these people but in larger cities, or if officials are new to the job, it might be helpful to use the simple method pioneered by the Ashoka foundation which finds and supports emerging social entrepreneurs. To identify potential change-makers, Ashoka prospectors ask many people whether they know someone with such and such a profile. The names which crop up most often are then included on the shortlist.
A very important aspect of mapping is the immersion of those leading the process in the real life and activities of organisations dealing with intercultural issues, or working with different audiences. It is simply impossible to understand the intercultural dynamics, stories, narratives, actors and relationships from behind a desk, by reading reports and participating in meetings: intercultural leaders and co-ordinators need to go on site, to markets, town squares, events, organisation and functions, to listen, observe and feel the pulse of the community.
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Robin Wilson’s 10-point template for policy-making:
1. an evidence-based definition of the problem to be solved,
2. an overarching aim to identify the possible solution,
3. a set of objectives which would realise that aim if achieved,
4. programmes and projects, developed with users, to implement them,
5. the structures/mechanisms needed to provide a coherent framework,
6. designated actors to take responsibility, including co-production by users,
7. the scale and source of resources required for implementation;
8. the vehicles for communication of the policy and to whom it should be communicated;
9. arrangements for monitoring and evaluation of its effectiveness, and
10. means for review and revision of the policy in that light.
These points correspond to the sequence identified by Jordan and Lenschow (2008: 12), of agenda setting (1), initiation (2), decision-making (3), implementation (4-8), evaluation (9) and revision (10)[17].
3. Building the Intercultural strategy of the city
The Intercultural strategy would usually be formulated by the designated task force in consultation with city departments, professional groups, NGOs and various organisations and structures involved, such as universities, consultative bodies of foreign residents etc.
Consultation and participation of communities in the development, implementation and evaluation of the intercultural city strategy is not only important and a value in itself; it is essential for achievement. A genuinely intercultural city can only be achieved through the active participation of all the major institutions, groups and communities in the city.
a) Consultation and participation
Useful principles that can guide effective approaches include:
- Recognition that there may, in minority communities, be a perceived history of ineffective consultation and scepticism about the changes that can result from such consultation.
- Clarity in the purpose of consultation/participation.
- Clarity in the scope of consultation/participation. What is there under discussion that is open to change? What is non-negotiable?
- Clarity on who is being consulted and why. Often authorities may search for ‘representatives’ of minority communities when in reality these communities are very diverse. When the authority is unsure, it is more useful to go for wide participation and consider the diversity of views that may be put forward rather than to look for a single, unified response.
- Clarity in identifying the outcomes of consultation and participation. This should include not only what has been agreed but also where there is disagreement or areas that require further work to achieve resolution.
- Intercultural sensitivity and cultural appropriateness in the logistics and process of consultation. This may include holding consultation at times which are convenient for the participants rather than the officials, appropriate choice of venue in the community rather than in city authority buildings, availability of appropriate refreshments, recognition of the needs of women and childcare arrangements.
- A commitment to provide public feedback on the results.
- Commitment to an ongoing process and evaluation of the process, rather than one-off consultation exercises on specific issue areas.
The strategy for engaging people needs to be very diversified to reach out to very different people so that when government changes it cannot change the policy because there are many people and organisations involved. Businesses should also be evangelists of interculturality
Hire a famous blogger (like Copenhagen) to attract attention and large groups of followers to intercultural issues
b) Community-based results accountability (CBRA) as a tool for building and monitoring the Intercultural city strategy
The Community-Based Results Accountability approach developed by the Washington Centre for the Study of Social Policy is a useful tool for structuring the development of the ICC strategy and monitoring results.
i) What is CBRA?
The principle of results based accountability means that public agencies measure their performance not on the basis of the efforts they make to address a social issue, such as good community relations, but on the basis of results on the ground, which are agreed with the participation of all community stakeholders. Targets are set and indicators for success are identified through a community consultation process, results are constantly monitored (in the medium and long term through a set of indicators and in the short term through a smaller set of performance indicators called “dashboard”). Solutions to issues are imagined collectively and involve the participation of agencies but also families and the broader community (co-investment of institutions and citizens).
CBRA is not a management tool, but a tool to mobilise people and public agencies towards a common goal.
ii) The CBRA process involves the following steps
· Intercultural Task Force, in co-operation with the Forum of Intercultural Champions, the body steering the development of the ICC strategy, also carries out the CBRA procedures. The first step would be to provide them with information/training on the CBRA approach and convince them of its usefulness.
· Selection of results: on the basis of the results of the intercultural mapping, and in broad consultation with organisations and citizens, identify diversity management goals (or re-state the goals defined by the city council if this has been done through an inclusive participatory process), define priorities and obstacles to reaching the goals. Goals identified by the process might not, in the first instance, be related to diversity, but when discussing the issue people might realise that cultural isolation or prejudice are obstacles to reaching these goals and decide to address these problems.
· Establish indicators to measure the achievement of goals: indicators need to be measurable, but the measurements could be very loose, for instance how security staff in some public spaces feel that conflicts between people from different cultural backgrounds have diminished. There should not be too many goals and indicators. Strong, welcoming and diverse cities are the general goals we have identified. In many cases, the success of the programme will actually be its steady progress over 2-3 years.
Types of indicators
Turning the curve – show progress towards the goals over a certain period of time, from the baseline.
Performance indicators that show how well you are performing on the tasks will help you to turn the curve (what sort things public agencies are doing to make progress)
Accomplishments: positive activities not included above – for instance, we opened a community centre
Anecdotes – even if you are not able to achieve a critical mass, at least tell the stories behind the statistics that show how individuals are better off.
An indicator is a measure that helps you quantify the achievement of a result.
A good indicator should be common sense and compelling (communication power), should say something important about the result (i.e. not be marginal), data power (consistent data to measure the result).
It is very important to discuss the extent to which perceptions are relevant indicators. For instance “what does it mean for you to be a diversity-friendly community”?
· Establish data sources and data collection processes, based on the indicators, to support the monitoring process.
· Establish the baseline data that you will be using as a starting point to measure your progress later. This data should be able to somehow demonstrate the efforts of people such as youth and social workers who try to make communities more cohesive and often do not see their efforts reflected in city-wide indicators.
· Select strategies: define the actions through which results can be achieved
· Design financing strategies, partnerships with various institutions and organisations
· Develop an accountability system (design the procedure for communicating with the stakeholders, reporting, making changes to the strategy and the system etc.). Both success and lack of it should be reported, for instance at community summits, through newsletters etc.
Assessing policies through the intercultural lens (guiding questions):
- Is it easy and natural for citizens/clients/residents/patients/customers (including those with low skills in the host language or limited experience with democracy and participation) to express their views and ideas? Do we seek to meet them in places where they lead their lives rather than expecting them to do so; do we use intermediaries with various cultural backgrounds as liaison persons to help build trust with citizens? Or do we instead prefer the comfort of discussing and deciding within the administration or with close allies (“friendly” NGOs or others).
- Do we use non-paper and non-verbal methods of expression to facilitate the participation of those who may have problems expressing their views through conventional channels?
- Do we really listen to those who do not necessarily have professional and expert competence in a certain field - ordinary citizens, young people, and children?
- Are we prepared to try out all ideas, in particular by cheap prototyping?
- Are we prepared and able to cut red tape to implement ideas that help increase intercultural interaction and innovation (in particular in relation to the use of public space).
- Are our staff diverse at all levels of authority?
- Are our staff aware of the challenges of diversity and do they think about their practice?
- Have we given staff from different cultural backgrounds the impetus to be critical of our approaches and policies and propose ideas that stem from other cultural practices?
- Do we encourage creative interaction between employees from various backgrounds, genders, ages, professional specialisms (meeting places that are inviting to everyone, moderated events)?
- Do we encourage policy innovation (including by rewarding mistakes as a sign of initiative, risk-taking and stepping out of the routine?)
- Do we strictly enforce the principle of non-discrimination?
- Do we communicate to stakeholders our intercultural commitment? Are we explicit about our belief in the diversity advantage?
- Do we have clear goals about improving our practice?
- Do we emphasise the internal diversity of citizen/user/client groups and adapt our approaches accordingly or do we tend to place people in boxes?
- Do we always question our spontaneous assumptions about what a certain group wants or thinks and confront them with the reactions of people belonging to that group?
- Do we think of citizens/users/clients as people generally in need of help, assistance, services or people that can contribute something special to the organisation or the city?
- How do we try to find out what unique added value people from different backgrounds from ours can offer?
- Are we prepared to deal with “cultural” conflict? What are our principles in this respect?
- Do we have enough knowledge/data/information about the backgrounds and situations of our citizens/clients/users to be able to frame policies that foster the diversity advantage (educational levels and achievement, languages spoken, work experience, life experience, special skills, aspirations, capabilities…)…
- Do we tend to develop “home-made” solutions or do we seek support and inspiration from a broad range of organisations and people? Do we try to find examples and experiences from other cities and countries? Do we empower and trust stakeholders (NGOs, companies, individuals) to drive and deliver policies and projects?
IV Elements of an intercultural strategy
A city strategy can be structured in many ways but you should recommend 10 important elements that, taken together, are likely to impact on public perceptions and public policies alike (or what has been called in the context of the programme the “software” and the “hardware” integration) and trigger collective dynamics towards “taming” and harnessing diversity for the benefit of the city and its people.
1. Encourage the development and persistence of positive public attitudes to diversity and a pluralist city identity through public discourse and symbolic actions.
Make a public statement pointing out that the city explicitly understands and is adopting a positive attitude to diversity and embracing an intercultural approach. Take some kind of iconic action to symbolise the transition to a new era of positive embracement of diversity, for example making atonement for a past misdeed or designating a particular day to be devoted to intercultural understanding. Establish awards or other schemes to reward and acknowledge single acts or lives devoted to building intercultural trust and understanding.
A city may contain many examples of interculturality but these may remain isolated or the public at large and the outside world may be unaware of them. The ideal intercultural city would be one which has taken a conscious decision to seek out, identify and acknowledge such cases, and to establish a policy objective of consolidating and building upon them and a development strategy which has appropriate resources to support it. The city would also have made an unambiguous public statement of its commitment to intercultural principles and would be actively engaged in persuading other key stakeholders in the city to do likewise.
2. Initiate an exercise to review the main functions of the city ‘through an intercultural lens’, and establish some flagship trial projects
Too often, municipal diversity policies are shaped in a reactive way, responding to serious and extreme issues (such as minority unrest, racist murders and other threats to law or public order) which are, however, comparatively rare. Meanwhile the day-to-day work, which constitutes the vast majority of the city’s activity, is sometimes overlooked. The heart of the Intercultural City concept is the notion of taking the important – but often mundane – functions of the city and re-designing and re-configuring them in an intercultural way.
Practically all areas of urban policy could be reviewed from an intercultural perspective, i.e. with regard to their impact on cultural identity, mutual perceptions between ethnic communities and the nature of their relationships. Below are some examples of intercultural approaches in several urban policy areas.
a) Education
Attitudes to culture, race, cultural dominance and pluralism, as well cultural skills and curiosity as can be formed at an early age. School has a powerful influence here and has the potential to either reinforce or challenge prejudices in a number of ways: through the physical, pedagogical and social environment that it creates, the guidance it provides and the values and knowledge it instils.
Questions to ask in relation to interculturality and education include, for instance: is the school experience helping young people to build cross-cultural relationships or is it reinforcing cultural separation? Is ‘intercultural competence’ part of the school curriculum or the subject of specific projects outside the curriculum? Are school teachers trained in intercultural competence? Does the ethnic profile of schools reflect the diversity of the city or is there a trend towards polarisation and mono-cultural schools? How can such a trend be countered? How can an intercultural school have an influence on the wider community and in particular, how can the school involve parents from various ethnic backgrounds in the educational process and help reinforce the fabric of the community?
Ideally, as a result of the intercultural audit in the field of education, initiatives to reinforce the intercultural impact of the school system will not be limited to isolated projects but will address the full range of elements and factors – from the diversity of the student and teaching body to the physical appearance of schools, the educational content and the relationships between schools and the wider community.
To effectively foster intercultural competence, schools need to approach it in a holistic way – not only through the curriculum.
- Provision of mother tongue classes (or recognition of knowledge of mother tongue);
- Strong partnership with parents and their involvement in school policies and school life; specific measures to reach out to and involve migrant parents;
- Informal ways of approaching parents: one school decided to experiment by sending an invitation to parents on an open post-card instead of in an envelope as parents often did not open official-looking envelopes. The response rate was much higher.
- Links to schools of other faiths (for faith-based schools);
- Ethnic diversity of teachers;
- Interaction with the local community;
- Intercultural projects;
- Ethnic mixing of pupils;
- Representation of diversity in the school interior design/decoration;
- Educational process and curriculum: teaching about religion (sociology and history of religion), intercultural angle in all disciplines, not only humanities, multi-perceptivity in history teaching;
- Encouraging migrant pupils to take an active part in democratic processes in schools;
- Intercultural training for teaching staff;
- Mentoring for minority pupils by majority pupils;
With the help of 30 teachers, school heads and experts from all over Europe, the Council of Europe has developed a tool to help teachers and learners to assess their intercultural or diversity competence, i.e. their behaviour in the context of diversity[18]:
Further reading
Joseph Huber (ed), Intercultural competence for all - Preparation for living in a heterogeneous world, Council of Europe Publishing 2012
b) The public realm; intercultural urban planning and place-making
Public spaces and facilities are important for several reasons. They are places which
most citizens are obliged to use from time to time therefore raising the possibility for
chance encounters between strangers. They may also reinforce cross-cultural solidarity,
for example in cases of public interest in the proposed development or closure of a facility. Well managed and animated spaces can become beacons of the city’s intercultural intentions. Conversely, badly-managed spaces can become places which arouse suspicion and fear of strangers.
The role of intercultural place-making is to create spaces which make it easier and attractive for people of different backgrounds to meet others and to minimise those which encourage avoidance, apprehension or rivalry.
Intercultural Place-making is not about planning and built environment professionals being ‘nice to minorities’. It implies a much deeper recognition and engagement with all forms of difference in our cities, and preparedness on the part of all who design, build, manage and use urban spaces and places
Multicultural planning practice has established important principles such as the requirement of equality for all in the face of planning legislation and for equitable and just treatment of all in its application. However the Intercultural City demands more of the people, the professionals and the politicians.
Whilst multiculturalism is predicated upon static notions of group identity, interculturalism expects a dynamic and constantly changing environment in which individuals and collectives express multiple, hybrid and evolving needs and identities.
In such a complex environment the place-making professionals need not only a new skillset but a new mentality, based on three themes: Principles, Awareness and Skills, Knowledge and Practices, which can be summarised as the learning of CULTURAL LITERACY in order to achieve a state of INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCE.
Principles
· Diversity of people, places, usage and ownership is not a problem to be managed but an advantage to be nurtured.
· Our object should be not to have spaces that belong to people but people who belong to spaces.
· Good design enables, bad design disables.
· Place-making professionals alone cannot realise change – they must cultivate inter-disciplinary collaboration as a matter of course.
· Inherent to interculturality are the ingredients for conflict. The art of good place-making is not to ignore or avoid them but to manage and mediate them as a creative process.
· Identity as the basis for the occupation and ownership of space is a short term expedient, but in the long term it is a source of fragmentation
· The point is not to ask ‘what is the cost of interculturally-competent place-making?’ but ‘what is the cost of not doing it?’
· Good intercultural place-making should reach beyond the issues of migration and ethnic diversity to embrace all aspects of difference in contemporary urban communities.
· The two most frequent barriers to new forms of place-making are prejudicial responses: “It cannot be done” and “It is too expensive”. The first is an error in design thinking. The second is an error in accounting practice
Awareness and Skills
· The human brain can exhibit different forms of intelligence and sensory perceptions and requires rational and affective stimulation in equal measure. Traditional approaches to planning and building have denied most of these traits, thus excluding the majority from participation and reinforcing the power of the few.
· The most important skill for place-makers and planners is to listen to people, to their stories, to the way in which they use space and live their lives, and their aspirations and then to work with them to translate this into expert systems.
· Professionals must always be aware of the biases inherent in their own education and training, and regularly seek to review and transcend them.
· Recognise that people express their feelings about their environment through very many means but rarely use the language of the professional.
· Whilst professionals cannot become experts in all the languages and cultural traits of a diverse community, they can become experts in recognising the key ‘intercultural moments’ when communication is being sought and offered, and in selecting the appropriate medium.
· Don’t take everything at face value – always seek out the hidden skills, resources and connections in a place.
· The preparation of interculturally competent citizens and professionals cannot begin too early and should be considered in school curricula for the very young.
· The greatest gifts that professional place-makers can give to cities are neither plans nor physical structures but their skills as facilitators and mediators of opportunity.
· Many of the best intercultural spaces emerge organically and unplanned and the art of a good place-maker is to know when to intervene and when to leave well alone.
Knowledge and Practices
· Good intercultural place-makers cannot know the answer to every question but they usually know where to look or who to ask.
· They have the humility to recognise the limits of their knowledge and the curiosity to challenge them.
· Engagement with people is not a one-off event but a constant process of listening, learning, designing, acting and re-listening – not a means to an end but the end in itself.
· Professional place-making teams, in municipalities and elsewhere, should constantly seek to enhance the diversity of their membership through training, recruitment and collaboration.
· They are not afraid of making mistakes or of reversing out of a wrong direction – place-makers are human too and good place-making is based on empathy not infallibility.
· Place-making is an act of co-creation between citizens and professionals. They ask each other three questions:
o What do you do already for your place?
o What do you dream for it?
o What do you pledge to do for it?
Questions to address in relation to the intercultural potential of the public realm include, for instance: Do the city’s main public spaces and institutions reflect its diversity or are they monocultural? How do different groups behave in the city’s public places: do they seek or avoid interaction? Is the atmosphere positive, indifferent, or tense? What is the status of the public realm in the city? Is it protected, safe and well maintained, is it becoming privatised, is it deteriorating or unsafe? Are the city planning and built environment professionals trained in intercultural competence? Is social interaction considered a priority in the planning guidance for new public spaces? Are consultation spaces and techniques flexible and diversified enough to accommodate non-Western participation styles and non-verbal forms of expression?
c) Housing and neighbourhoods
There is great variation across European cities in the extent to which patterns of residential
settlement are connected to culture and ethnicity and there are also varying opinions on whether the state should intervene or if the market and personal choice should be the prime determinants. An ideal Intercultural city does not require a ‘perfect’ statistical mix of people and recognises the value of ethnic enclaves, so long as they do not act as barriers to the free flow of people, ideas and opportunities both inward and outward.
The level of neighbourhood cohesion is an important indicator of integration as well as of positive attitudes towards diversity. In a 2011 survey carried out by IPSOS in 7 European cities in the context of SPARDA, a joint Council of Europe/European Union activity, highlighted the relationship between perceived levels of neighbourhood social cohesion and securing the benefits of diversity. People who perceived low levels of social cohesion in their neighbourhood were more negative on most aspects of immigration. For example, 66% of people who perceive low cohesion levels in their area agree that immigration has placed too much pressure on the infrastructure of their city compared to 54% of those who perceive high cohesion levels in their area.
The intercultural integration approach therefore needs to place special emphasis on community development and neighbourhood cohesion. Along with participatory structures and processes, neighbourhood projects which enable residents to work together towards a common goal are a key tool.
Such projects need to be designed in such a way as to encourage and facilitate the involvement of people of different cultural, educational and social backgrounds, ages and genders. It is important to provide incentives and opportunities for people to interact across their differences as frequently as possible since physical mixing is not automatically conducive to greater contact, openness and proximity. Such incentives comprise the creation of community centres with diverse staff or/and volunteers, educational, civic and festive events, mediation activities, open spaces with a range of cultural connotations where people of different backgrounds and ages feel welcome and at ease.
Questions to consider: does the city have residential areas which are defined along ethnic lines? Does the system for allocation of public housing and/or the private housing market contribute to ethnic concentration? Do local community facilities encourage greater ethnic interaction or are they mainly monocultural?
d) Public services and civic administration
In an ideal Intercultural city public employees – at all levels of seniority- would reflect the ethnic/cultural background of the population. Moreover, the city would recognise that as the population changes, the very nature of the public service must be reviewed and possibly revised. It must be open to the possibility of new ideas and innovation contributed by minority groups rather than imposing a ‘one size fits all’ approach.
Questions a city should be asking itself Actions a city might consider
Questions to consider: Is the city taking action to ensure that the ethnic/cultural background of public employees reflects that of the population as a whole? Has the city reviewed or changed the structure, ethos or methodology of its public service delivery to take account of the ethnic/cultural mix of its citizens and staff? Does the city take action to encourage intercultural mixing in the private sector labour market? What is the role of the police in regard to cultural diversity – does it act as a factor of positive acceptance of diversity or does it reinforce prejudice; does it maintain peace between groups, enforce immigration laws, or maintain the status quo? To what extent are the police willing and able to take a more proactive role and act as community bridge-builders between groups?
How to motivate the authorities’ interest in intercultural development
- Organise workshops or discussions with officials in mixed groups, across administrative silos and specialisms, and including intercultural innovators with professional, educational and creative backgrounds.
- Organise workshops or other meetings not in the administrative offices but in art spaces or other unusual environments that invite out-of-the-box thinking. Foster the creative confidence of the administration
- Encourage civil servants to take part in field projects involving interaction with citizens, as in designing Dublin
- The Bonus for mistakes approach in Copenhagen
e) Business and economy
Large parts of the economy and the labour market may be beyond the remit and control of the city authority but may fall within its sphere of influence. Because of nationally-imposed restrictions on access to the public sector labour market, the private sector may provide an easier route for minorities to engage in economic activity. In turn, such activities (e.g. shops, clubs, restaurants) may provide a valuable interface between different cultures in the city.
To ensure recognition and optimal use of migrants’ skills in the urban economy to drive innovation, growth and entrepreneurship, the city must encourage business organisations to go beyond formal qualification recognition and look for a greater range of criteria for establishing skills, provide mentoring and targeted guidance for migrant entrepreneurs, incentives for young entrepreneurs such as prizes and incubators, and encourage business links with countries of origin.
In 2008, at the peak of an economic boom, the total unemployed workforce in Copenhagen was 40,000 people, one third of whom were of a minority background. Ninety per cent of the 1,000 companies approached thought that having a minority workforce was positive and around 30% thought minority employees were more reliable. However, at that time Danish immigration policy was very restrictive, there was much extreme anti-migrant discourse in Europe. 70 % of Danes did not have any friends from minority backgrounds, an indication of a high degree of cultural divide.
An organisation called “New Danes” was created at that time by minority DRH and other professionals, to raise awareness of the lack of equal job opportunities for migrants. At first they used moral arguments, based on the concept of corporate social responsibility. In the meantime their discourse has shifted towards the business case for diversity, using examples and data to convince enterprises to open up to a diverse workforce and develop competence in diversity management.
The secret of New Danes’ success was to involve various stakeholders - academia, municipality, enterprises, in a comprehensive process towards realising the diversity advantage. They use appreciative enquiry to assess the level of achievement of each company, looking at the diversity of the workforce, within their customer and user groups, as well as within partner and supplier companies, and at initiatives and policies to seek and cultivate diversity and a diversity culture. Criteria by which to gauge the diversity advantage are innovation, management quality, product and service development, new markets, recruitment and retention, and communication and branding.
The city of Copenhagen has launched a series of projects to enhance migrant employment (e.g. ‘Integration Contact’, which was run by the Jobcentre), a Diversity Board to involve businesses in the city’s diversity agenda.
The Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise has launched the Global Future programme aimed at qualified professionals of minority background who seek high executive and board positions. Through a series of 19 one-day seminars over a year and a half and a mentoring scheme, they benefit from leadership and management skills development, intercultural understanding and networking (http://www.nho.no/globalfuture)
Some questions to consider: Is there a business umbrella organisation whose objectives include promoting diversity and non-discrimination in employment? Does the city have a charter or another binding document prohibiting discrimination in the workplace and/or targets for enterprises working with the cities as diversity employers? Does the city take action to encourage intercultural mixing in the private sector labour market? Does the city take action to encourage businesses from ethnic/cultural minorities to move beyond localised/ethnic economies and enter the mainstream economy? Has the city taken steps to encourage ‘business districts’ in which different cultures could mix more easily? In its procurement of goods and services does the city council give priority to companies with a diversity strategy?
Building companies in Botkyrka (both public and private) provide space for small-scale educational centres providing support for children with learning needs. One company has also provided an apartment free of charge as an artist residence for community-based art projects.
Further reading:
Global Diversity and Inclusion: Fostering Innovation Through a Diverse Workforce, Forbes insights, http://www.forbesmedia.com/files/Innovation_Through_Diversity.pdf
f) Sport and the arts
The time which people allocate to their leisure may often be the best opportunity for them to encounter and engage with people of another culture in a neutral and festive context. At the same time, however, if leisure is structured along ethnic lines (e.g. a football league of teams from only one culture) it may reinforce separation. The city can influence this through its own activities and through the way it distributes resources to other organisations. For cultural events or activities to be vectors of intercultural communication and interaction, they need to be conceived with a diverse public in mind; people must be encouraged to cross over artificial barriers and experience other cultures; cultures must be presented as living, changing phenomena which thrive on interaction with other cultures and stimulate the hybridisation of cultural expressions.
The following questions need to be asked: Are most cultural and leisure groups in the city constituted on mono-ethnic or multi-ethnic lines? Do the city’s professional sports and arts organisations explicitly encourage ethnic mixing? Are there funding and training schemes to support talent from ethnic minority backgrounds?
Elements of an intercultural urban policy for the arts
- Invite high-level contemporary artists from the countries of origin of major migrant communities - this gives them pride in their culture and allows them to keep abreast of the cultural evolution of the country of origin, avoiding the classic syndrome of migrant conservatism;
- Encourage mainstream cultural institutions (opera, theatre, dance halls, museums, orchestras...) to programme local migrant artists - international and intercultural programming are not one and the same thing. Opening up these institutions to contemporary art forms (video, hip-hop, graffiti...) helps to involve more diverse artists and audiences (ethnic and age-wise);
- Encourage artistic programmes that promote intercultural collaboration between artists and feature the results of such collaboration;
- Allocate significant resources to neighbourhood and amateur artistic involvement (e.g. carnivals, art clubs, graffiti competitions, video and photo projects etc...);
- Sponsor artists’ work on intercultural themes (e.g. on the segregation of public space and minds), employ artists as cultural mediators for community-building projects;
- Divert the holding of cultural events from the mainstream institutions, city centre and prestigious venues, to open spaces, marginalised/poor neighbourhoods;
- Encourage (also through funding criteria) the active involvement of people from other communities in "national' cultural events and celebrations (e.g. the Chinese New Year), not only as spectators but also as participants.
![Text Box: Further reading
Pascale Bonniel-Chalier, Interculturalism in the cultural policies of European cities,
http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/cultureheritage/culture/Cities/CULTURAL.policy_en.pdf
Ricard Zapata-Barrero, Cultural policies in contexts of diversity: the city as a setting for innovation and opportunities, http://www.eui.eu/Projects/ACCEPT/Documents/News/Culturalpoliciesorg[1].pdf](data:image/jpg;base64,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){kind=small}
g) Urban safety
- Focus on shared safety priorities. Draw up safety strategies that combine ‘The Best of Three Worlds’ i.e. problem-oriented policing (POP), intelligence-led policing (ILP) and community policing (CP). This new model is currently being taught at the Dutch police academy. As a first step, crime trends are identified on the basis of annual police data and reports, using the standardised method of Scanning, Analysis, Response and Assessment (SARA). Priority problems are defined according to the ‘80/20 rule’ that 80% of problems are due to 20% of causes. These problems are analysed in terms of concentration (‘hot spots’), frequency (‘hot crimes’), perpetrators (‘hot shots’) and targets (‘hot victims’). The project plan is supported by an intelligence-led model of task forces, partnerships and management, with the mayor occupying the key role of prioritising police capacities and engaging partner institutions. Adopt the Hague ‘SARA model’, a standard procedure for defining priorities and actions with the police, social partners and citizens of diverse backgrounds (see the Hague example below).
- Look for creative safety alternatives in the public realm. Highlight visible improvements in ‘hotspot’ neighbourhoods, (Lisbon Mouraria, Reggio Emilia station district etc.), make safety workshops a key element of the Intercultural city strategy.
- Promote trust-building in changing police cultures. Make intercultural communication part and parcel of police training, as well as new methods of proximity (community) policing through social media, such as the Finnish ‘Net Cops’ and the Geneva ‘Flic du Quartier’.
- Establish structural and visible relations between safety and care. Develop an intercultural response to youth violence and criminal gangs; connect tested models like the Botkyrka approach to rioting, the Lewisham ‘Cease Fire’ for youth murder re-offenders and the ‘Tilburg Care & Safety House’, as business-cases in the ICC approach to Community-Based Result Accountability (CBRA).
- Develop monitoring tools for safety interventions. Adapt the ‘Rotterdam-Copenhagen Safety Index’ model to local priorities, as a way of taking the safety concerns of citizens seriously, and enabling both trust-building and law enforcement in neighbourhoods.
Exemple
Since 2008, youth violence is being tackled by ‘virtual community policing’. A team of ‘Net Cops’ is making proactive use of social media like Facebook and Twitter. In their professional capacities as uniformed policemen, they talk with young people and share information and advice. A 2011 Internet survey showed that the Net Cops had 172,269 fans on Facebook and were easily recognised in regular street patrols. Apart from preventing incidents, this approach helped to improve reporting on issues such as domestic violence, sexual abuses and cybercrime. Trust in the police clearly increased, also among migrant children. The evaluation study suggests that this approach also helps to prevent radicalisation and extremist violence. But the process is delicate and care should be taken to make sure that young people are not perceived as informants. At present, 30 new Net Cops are being trained at the Police Academy.
Such an approach combines a community policing strategy with intelligence-led policing. It helps establish widespread trust in the police (96% in Finland). Concrete results can be measured in terms of both ‘value for money’ and ‘public values’, such as greater cohesion and well-being of society. The state of research is summed up in the draft article, ‘Innovation of community policing in Finland’, which was distributed prior to the seminar: http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/cultureheritage/culture/Cities/meetings/LisbonVirta_en.pdf
The Hague district ‘Schilderswijk’ stands out in all the statistics: it has the highest levels of segregation and poverty in the Netherlands, and 85% of the 30,000 residents are migrants of 120 different origins, predominantly Moroccan, Turkish and Surinamese. In this compact living environment, world conflicts like the ‘Arab Spring’ can have a direct impact on feelings of safety. Problem-oriented policing (POP) showed that there was a rising number of burglaries (hot crimes), concentrated in particular streets and blocks (hotspots), and committed by frequent offenders, 75% of whom were young people between 12 and 17 years of age, if not younger (hotshots). The most vulnerable were elderly migrants because of lack of social control and poor quality housing (hot victims).
In response, community policing was reinforced with 42 ‘bikers’, highly mobile and approachable street patrols. In co-operation with social workers and housing corporations, the quality of door locks and street lights was improved. The partners made a joint list of the 40 most persistent offenders, selecting 5 persons every week for extra attention at multiple police levels. Former offenders also receive frequent visits from community police officers or social workers. Intelligence-led policing is made public, through social media and neighbourhood meetings. Instead of hiding disturbing crime data, people are fully informed, receive advice about burglary prevention and are encouraged to discuss community efforts.
It is expected that 2012 will show a drop in the number of burglaries. Experience shows that when the number of burglaries goes down, all other types of crime go down as well. The main challenges are a change of organisational culture in the police force and in social organisations to engage in problem-oriented partnerships, and the active involvement of groups of inhabitants in each neighbourhood. 90% of the victims are migrants who usually do not trust the police and fail to report crimes out of fear of retaliation. The focused policing method helps to create a diversity advantage in urban safety, in the sense that migrants are not misperceived as potential criminals but valued as potential allies. Police officers are trained in intercultural skills, also through informal learning, for instance organising a youth football event together with mosques and other community groups.
Reggio Emilia’s safety strategy. By responding to urban degradation and antisocial behaviour in the notorious railway station zone, the municipality fosters the creation of a new identity for the neighbourhood through urban renewal. Public spaces have become sites of intercultural mixing and dialogue, with the establishment of a new square and the intercultural refurbishment of a local park with Moroccan-themed children’s theatre, an ethical fair trade shop and a social mediation centre. The municipal police local office next door is open 12 hours a day. The project has mobilised volunteers to work in the Reggio East Community Centre, which hosts the ‘Academy of Everyday Life’ - Italian language courses and everyday culture for Arab women, and courses in sport and arts for the 167 summer festival.
3. Acknowledge the inevitability of conflict in mixed communities and develop the city’s skills in mediation and resolution, including by setting up specialised institutions to deal with cultural conflict.
It is a basic tenet of the Intercultural City that where groups of different cultural background and social and economic status are present in close proximity, there is always the potential for conflict over values, behaviour or resources. This is natural – what would be unnatural would be for city authorities to seek to deny or ignore it. The process of anticipating, identifying, addressing and resolving conflicts is a fundamental process of living together in a dynamic and communicative community. Indeed the optimum Intercultural City sees the opportunity for innovation and growth emerging from the very process of conflict mediation and resolution.
The philosophy of the Intercultural city in relation to mediation comprises several aspects:
- Recognising the full range of contexts and situations in the city where tension and conflict is underpinned by intercultural misunderstanding, lack of awareness or hostility.
- Recognising the full scope for intercultural mediation between individuals, groups, communities and institutions.
- Identifying city ‘hotspots’ where intercultural mediation may be necessary and urgent if broader progress is to be made on the intercultural agenda. This may include housing and segregation issues, distinctive education needs and issues such as dress and faith symbols in schools, policing, family and social welfare concerns.
- Identifying professionals and NGOs which have to mediate on a daily basis as part of their practice. Looking at whether there is expertise that can be applied more widely or in other settings.
- Reviewing support and training needs for authority professionals.
- Looking at the scope for developing a pool of intercultural mediators available across the city system.
Questions to consider: Is city policy strongly influenced by the need to avoid the possibility of ethnic conflict? Are city officials trained in mediation and conflict resolution skills? Does the city have procedures and mechanisms for recognising and dealing with potential flashpoints? Are there institutions in the city that can help communities resolve their differences?
4. Invest heavily in language training to ensure that all migrants are able to converse in the majority language, but also enable members of the majority to learn or get an impression of minority languages, and give added visibility to and recognise these languages in the public sphere.
It is vital for integration that migrants learn the language of the host country. However there are other considerations in an intercultural approach to language, which entails dealing with languages as a resource for economic, cultural and scientific relations and developments in an interconnected world. Language is a key element of identity in cities where there is no real migration but one or more national minorities (or indeed where there is no clear majority group). The aim of the intercultural approach is to foster equal respect for the languages in question and mutual learning across language-divides. In cities where recent migration or trade connections have brought entirely new languages into the city, which are spoken by a large minority of the population (e.g. Spanish in some US cities), interculturalism is measured by the extent to which the majority are prepared to adopt these languages in daily life.
One of the key areas for promoting multi-lingualism is school education. In the age of super-diversity where children in schools increasingly bring with them dozens of heritage languages, schools can foster language awareness by using examples of languages spoken by the pupils and help to abolish the de-facto ranking between “noble” Western languages and less “noble” or “useful” languages of the non-Western world. Not only is such a ranking contrary to the refusal of the intercultural approach to establish a hierarchy between cultures and languages, but also out of step with the increasing economic and cultural importance of the languages of emerging economies.
Language awareness-raising can be used for all foreign languages but it seems logical to focus on the home languages and linguistic varieties already present in the classroom (for example: singing songs, counting, citing the days of the week in different languages, language portfolio). A positive attitude towards language diversity may contribute to a better understanding between children in class and at school. It also contributes to wellbeing and to the development of the identity of non-native language speakers. After all, if this approach is used these children feel encouraged to express their ideas, opinions and feelings in their own language. The attention paid to their native language increases its status and thanks to this children become experts in their mother tongue and their self-esteem, and indirectly their motivation to learn and their school results, increases.
These principles can be applied to both children and parents. Language awareness-raising may be an important instrument to increase the involvement of the parents. In doing so they are considered to be experts in their native language, just like their children, are acknowledged and rewarded and find more self-confidence in their communication with members of the school team. By acknowledging and appreciating their native language parents can be encouraged to help their children with their homework using their native language. This counters the commonly held view that they absolutely need to master Dutch to be able to help their children with their schoolwork.
Between language awareness-raising and multilingual education there is still a wasteland full of opportunities waiting to be discovered, which can be called 'functional multilingual learning'. In the context of functional multilingual learning, schools use the multilingual repertoire of children to increase knowledge acquisition. The home languages and linguistic varieties of children can be seen as capital explicitly used to increase educational success and personal development. The first language may serve as a steppingstone for the acquisition of the second language and new teaching content. In this approach, the teacher encourages students to help each other in the execution of a task (for example: explaining to a new student with insufficient knowledge of Dutch what to do) or in the preparation of group work. This approach requires a certain working method: the teaching environment should allow students to interact on a regular basis and should not be entirely teacher-directed. During such intense interactive moments the linguistic skills of the students help to solve a mathematic problem or to execute a task in physics[19].
Questions: Does the translation of public information into minority languages in the context of various public information campaigns and in social services encourage or prevent people from gaining command of the majority language? Are services offered to support the learning of the host language supported by psychological incentives to people to invest in language learning? Are there actions or initiatives in the educational or cultural fields aimed at promoting recognition of minority/migrant languages in the community? Does the city have local newspaper/journal/radio or TV programs in languages other than the language of the majority ethnic group?
5. Establish a joint strategy with local media agencies and where appropriate journalism schools to gather and present news in a responsible and intercultural way, secure balanced reporting of migrants/minorities in the media and strengthen community media.
Important considerations in public discourse and media ethics may include:
- Defining and communicating the key messages of the intercultural cities initiative locally.
- The intercultural understanding, skills and competence of media professionals, including editors and journalists, and how these can be enhanced.
- The scope for intercultural champions and key city figures to act as ‘ambassadors’ and spokespeople on intercultural issues for the media.
- The scope for ‘catalytic’ events at key points of the initiative to generate media attention and public discussion of intercultural issues and for ‘critical debates’ where complex and sensitive issues are addressed by experts and others to sensitise the media to interculturalism and break down stereotypes.
Media-related actions
· Develop ways of working with the media. This is a specific and very successful dimension of Intercultural cities. Meetings with journalists are always held during expert meetings to help them understand the Intercultural city concept and invite them to become partners in achieving the objectives. Cross-media reporting with international teams, where over a period of a few days mixed teams of journalists prepare written/radio/TV reports about certain intercultural issues and present them at a public hearing, has had an enormous success in cities as well as with journalists for whom such experiences are eye-opening.
The local media should be active participants in the ICC project not simply channels for reporting. Ideally the media should be represented on the task force or at least the wider support network. At the very least there should be regular discussions with the media on the progress of the project.
At the same time, cities should address some of the root causes of lack of balanced approach to diversity in the media. On all levels, from owners downwards – to editors-in-chief, editors and reporters - mainstream
media lack space for open dialogue on issues relating to language, race, faith, ethnicity, gender and other diversity challenges. There needs to be more diversity in two areas: content (in most of the cases – media content does not reflect existing social diversity), and recruitment (the staff working in the media organisation is less diverse than the audience).
A comprehensive media diversity strategy in cities would involve actions in the following areas:
· media monitoring
· mid-career diversity training and professional development
· diversity reporting initiatives
· diversity reporting, journalism education and curricula development
· media assistance for civil society organisations and marginalised communities
· intercultural media award
6. Establish an international policy for the city
A genuine intercultural city would be a place which actively sought to make connections with other places for trade, exchange of knowledge, tourism etc. It would be a place which the stranger (whether businessperson, tourist or new migrant) found legible, friendly and accessible, with opportunities for entering into business, professional and social networks.
The intercultural strategy of a city would
- proclaim that the city is open to both ideas and influences from the outside world and also seek to outwardly project its own identity
- establish independent trade and policy links with the countries of origin of minority groups, monitor and develop new models of local/global citizenship
Questions to consider: What is the external image of the city? Is it seen as cosmopolitan and open to outsiders? As a place to visit, to invest or do business in? How many local people believe that foreigners bring advantage to the city? How many people think foreign influences threaten local culture?
7. Establish an intercultural intelligence function or an observatory, or at least begin the process of:
- monitoring examples of good practice locally and in other places
- gathering and processing local information and data
- conducting research into the state of cross-cultural interaction in the city
- establishing and monitoring intercultural indicators
- dispensing advice and expertise to local agencies and facilitating local learning networks.
Intercultural policies should, just as any other policy, be evidence-based. A city cannot be intercultural if it is ignorant of its citizens, their diversity and lifestyles and how they interact with each other. An intercultural observatory takes existing data and examines it from an intercultural perspective. It also identifies gaps in the city’s knowledge base and where necessary devises new kinds of data and analysis to add depth and clarity to the ‘intercultural audit’ underpinning the development of a diversity-management strategy.
Digital mapping
One of the instruments that have been developed more recently and which provides great opportunities for the management of public policies, including in the field of intercultural relations, is the digital mapping of a territory.
Barcelona has used this method to shape policies in the field of migration management and interculturality. A few years ago the City Council commissioned the development of a web portal that allows the mapping of various kinds of information related to immigration, cultural practices, places and organisations.
The result was the Immigration Portal de Barcelona, a valuable tool for visualising and securing a better understanding of the demographic changes taking place in the city in recent years.
The portal is structured as a city map and makes it possible to search for information from multiple variables that can display various units of territory: by district, ward or smaller units. The information that can be displayed is very diverse: statistical information regarding the city population profile and nationality: the number of people, places of residence, age, gender, births etc.
The map also incorporates a great deal of information relating to migrant associations, organisations dealing with intercultural dialogue, places of worship of different faiths, and relevant social, educational, cultural and health institutions and organisations.
The possibility of crossing several variables and displaying them simultaneously on the map makes it possible to deepen the perception and knowledge of a complex and rapidly changing reality.
For example, we can "create" maps that show and compare the degree of dispersion or concentration over time of citizens of different nationalities. We also have the possibility to compare the place of residence of citizens of a particular nationality with the location of the entities that offer hosting services or public libraries to assess the degree of closeness with one another and give us a better understanding of the way in which they use these services.
When we “click" on a neighbourhood, a table appears giving all the statistical information we have chosen. And if we click on the symbols of the institutions or places of worship, the table will show explanatory information, a link to a web site, etc.
The interactive digital maps can be converted into a PDF to attach to any document, study or press release.
The portal is intended for the general public and obviously for policy-makers. But it can also be of interest to groups such as journalists, researchers and students, etc. as it facilitates access to objective information in an area where transparency and rigour is fundamental to increase knowledge and avoid the consolidation of stereotypes and clichés.
Questions to consider: Does the city work in collaboration with the local university? What role does the university play? Does it provide and process local information and data on ethnicity, on the impact of measures included in the city’s diversity strategy, on public perceptions of diversity? Is this data then used by local government to formulate and implement future initiatives? Does the local government use this information to directly/ indirectly improve its services to ethnic minority populations?
8. Initiate a programme of intercultural awareness training for politicians and key policy and public interface staff in public sector agencies. Encourage the private sector to participate.
Intercultural awareness first became popular in international enterprises, where it was used to facilitate the management of diverse teams and work with foreign clients. More and more cities now provide intercultural awareness training for their employees to improve the effectiveness of the administration and services and ensure adequate access to social rights. Such awareness is indeed vital for the employees to be able to assess the ways policies and services are perceived by different groups and adapt them to citizens’ cultural specificities. Family relations, expressing one’s expectations, feelings and reactions, perceptions of punctuality, authority and many other key dimensions of human behaviour are shaped by culture and affect profoundly the way people relate to each other, the community and public authorities.
Very few people can be expected to be experts in more than one or two of the languages and cultures of the many groups who live in a city. However, the competent public official in an ideal intercultural city should be able to detect, and respond to, the presence of cultural difference, and modulate their approach accordingly, rather than seeking to impose one mode of behaviour upon all situations. Such sensitivity and self-confidence in unfamiliar situations is not commonly seen but is a skill which can be acquired through expert training and must become as important to the officials as their specific profession and technical skills.
9. Launch welcoming initiatives for newcomers and urban exploration projects whereby not only (temporary and permanent) new arrivals but also local citizens can visit parts of the city they have not previously seen, hosted by people of different cultures, become acquainted with the city services and institutions, and receive personalised integration support.
People arriving in the city for an extended stay (whatever their circumstances) are likely to find themselves disorientated and in need of multiple forms of support. The degree to which these various support measures can be co-ordinated and delivered effectively will have a major impact on how the person settles and integrates. What is often overlooked, but has a powerful impact on intercultural relations, is whether those from the host community have been given any prior preparation or whether, on the contrary, they might feel surprised or alarmed by the new arrival.
Questions to consider: Do the local authorities provide welcoming initiatives such as encounters with policy-makers, orientation meetings with NGOs and services, skills testing? Are there urban exploration projects (such as intercultural guides and city walks)? How often do these take place and who is targeted? How does the local authority select the guides for the projects/ initiatives? How does it ensure that the guides come from various cultural backgrounds? Is heritage- diverse heritage- celebrated through e.g. literature, songs myths or symbolic events where different groups can present their heritage)?
10. Establish intercultural governance processes for encouraging cross-cultural decision making in both civil society organisations and public institutions, support the emergence of new civic and political leaders from diverse backgrounds and ensure the current leadership is culturally knowledgeable and competent
Perhaps the most powerful and far-reaching processes a city can establish in making a city more intercultural are democratic representation and decision-making. Clearly some of these may be determined nationally, but there is much that a city council can do to influence the way in which diverse groups interact and co-operate through the allocation of power and resources.
With regard to intercultural governance cities need to recognise that
- intercultural values build on accountability, transparency and trust between institutions and communities and these values, and projects to enhance them, are important in themselves.
- the intercultural city will require leadership in a wide variety of spheres and at different levels; the enhancing of intercultural leadership in NGOs and communities and of partnerships and networks will be as important as leadership of the city authority.
- the initiative will inevitably raise questions with regard to the representation of minorities in city authority structures and this may generate tension and conflict. This issue should not be avoided but be used creatively to consider how minorities are brought into the mainstream decision-making structures.
Questions to consider: Are city leaders well-informed about the city in all its diversity? Are there clear procedures for taking multi-agency action in relation to community relations issues? Does the city have an umbrella body which represents all ethnic minorities and is independent of the local authority? Does the local authority have a cross-departmental body for overseeing implementation of the city’s policy on integration and intercultural relations? Does the city take account of the improvement in intercultural relations when it is designing and implementing public consultation programmes? Does the city encourage actions (for example neighbourhood management forums) in which neighbours of different ethnic/cultural backgrounds can participate together in the development of their area? How do political and community leaders in the city emerge? How open is the system to newcomers and outsiders? Do community leaders speak only for their own ethnicity or a broader interest group? Does the city nurture cross-cultural leaders who emerge outside the formal political and community channels?
The success of Neuchâtel’s intercultural policy (Neuchâtel has the best score on the Intercultural cities INDEX[20]) is due to a large extent to the multi-layered and yet coherent and effective system of governance of diversity, based on the canton law of 1996 (first of its type in Switzerland) and the new Cantonal constitution of 2002. The governance system consists of:
1. A Multicultural Cohesion service with a multi-cultural staff of 15 who, between them, speak many of the 95 languages present in the community. The service has a mandate to work with other institutions at all levels and to take policy initiatives. The office has a good operational capacity and an integrated approach covering several policy fields. The Canton clearly cannot meet the challenge of diversity alone. It operates via a vast network of associations - African, Latin-American, Islamic, Turkish, Kosovar, Albanian and Macedonian - which provides a vehicle for consultation and programme implementation.
The role of the MC Service is to apply the Cantonal Law on the Integration of Foreign Nationals of 26 August 1996, which is aimed at mediating and fostering harmonious relations between Swiss people and foreign nationals and at promoting the integration of foreigners in the Neuchâtel canton. It oversees the service under the responsibility of the Department of the Economy.
It works in close co-operation with the Working Community for the Integration of Foreigners (Communauté de travail pour l’intégration des étrangers - CTIE), see below.
The Service has three principal and very important functions with regard to integration policy.
It acts as
- a specialised contact centre,
- as the cantonal Commissioner for Foreign Nationals and
- as a logistical body for the CTIE (see below), migrant organisations and groups concerned by the various aspects of the presence of foreign and migrant populations.
The Service offers interpretation and mediation services, based on a three-party model and a network of 85 mediators (adopting a “pragmatic” – vs. cultural – approach). It includes a unit (centre de competence) providing targeted information to promote social and integration policies, and a unit to prevent racism and discrimination.
Along with the welcome programme for new arrivals (ANA) and Neuchatel’s Citizenship Charter, the key integration programmes carried out by the Service are:
- vocational integration, including (since 2005) collaboration with watch-making enterprises;
- implementation of the Federal 12 measures concerning integration of pre-primary children;
- prevention of forced marriages, an initiative (since 2007) implemented by the Conseil d’Etat including an information campaign and the distribution of over 1,000 leaflets;
- the FeNEtre sur le monde programme, including radio broadcasting of significant cultural and sport events, with special focus on the migrant integration and intercultural relations dimension;
- the Vivre ici en venant d’ailleurs programme (since 2002) including the publication and the radio broadcasting of narratives by people of foreign origin living in the Canton.
- Targeted information is also available through the InterDialogos review (www.ne.ch/interdialogos) published at La Chaux-de-Fonds.
The Service has been developing an “Integratio Tempo” tool to track and identify key issues and developments concerning the integration of migrants. The tool maps the position of migrants according to two intersecting tensions: inclusion-exclusion and aggregation-segregation. Such mapping produces four main positions: integration, distinction, discrimination and insertion. It is based on 12 basic and a number of complementary indicators.
2. Committee for the integration of foreigners (CTIE). The Committee has 40 members and since 1991 has served as a consultative body issuing recommendations for the Conseil d’Etat (Cantonal government). For 15 years the Conseil d’Etat has always adopted these recommendations and validated the policies and projects of the Service du Delégué aux étrangers. The Committee meets 4 times a year in plenary and holds sub-committee meetings (3-4 times a year for each sub-committee).
The Committee comprises representatives of ethnic communities (but not of religious communities because the Canton is officially secular) in numbers proportionate to the members of the group. The representatives are proposed by the communities and appointed by the Conseil d’Etat (Cantonal government). Representatives of other groups (employers, trade unions, etc.) and geographical entities are also included, in particular in sub-committees. For instance the sub-committee on employment and social problems comprises representatives of the Italian community, Catholics and Protestants, representatives of the watch-making and building industries.
Each session focusses on a theme or issue such as criminal behaviour (with a presentation by the head of police), cross-border workers (do they “steal” the jobs of locals – a researcher and the head of the observatory explained that there is no job dumping); integration through football; Islam between myth and reality.
The Committee also has an operational budget.
Immigration policy is the responsibility of federal government while integration policy falls within the local government remit. Integration policy makes no distinction between people in relation to their legal status. However, some fundamental principles/values have to be respected by everyone. As yet no other Swiss canton has a body responsible for combating racism.
Current priorities for integration policy:
a) Professional integration. Studies show that non-Europeans are often victims of discrimination.
b) Housing integration
c) Citizenship
Although the Neuchâtel integration policy is considered to be successful, the Canton’s participation in Intercultural cities is motivated by the need to constantly anticipate and be prepared for new challenges, since the social context is constantly changing and situations are never consolidated. One of the key challenges identified by the Canton is the federal government policy of restricting immigration and not facilitating integration.
For additional information: The annual reports by the Multicultural Cohesion Service (Service de la cohésion multiculturelle - COSM)[21]; the monthly newsletter[22]; an overview of Neuchâtel’s management of intercultural diversity[23] as an example of public politics is provided by Oriane Von Gunten in the four-page article “Swiss interculturality in Neuchâtel”.
V Monitoring implementation and measuring progress
As with all urban policies, it is essential to monitor implementation, assess progress, communicate the results of the assessment to the community and take corrective action.
A number of points relating to the development of an evidence base for intercultural policy have already been discussed in paragraph IV.7. The results-based accountability method presented above also involves the development of indicators and a dashboard to monitor progress towards specific objectives.
The setting up of monitoring groups and committees, composed preferably of representatives of public authorities and civil society, is a useful mechanism to ensure on-going assessment of progress. In some cases, such groups would critically assess results and make recommendations to a decision-making body responsible for the strategy. Ideally, however, the group which monitors results would be also able to take decisions to adjust the strategy.
An additional tool to follow the intercultural development of the city over time and in comparison with other cities across Europe is the Intercultural cities INDEX.
The INDEX was developed during the pilot phase of the Intercultural cities programme and tested by the 11 pilot cities. Although each city starts from its own unique position within different national contexts, all have agreed to work towards a common set of objectives and themes as expressed in the elements of an Intercultural city strategy presented above.
The INDEX is not intended to be a scientific tool. It would be impossible to reduce the essence of interculturality to a few measurements, or to establish clear-cut relationships of cause and effect between policies and actions and outcomes in something so subjective. The intercultural city approach is not a science but a general set of principles and a way of thinking. Thus, the Intercultural city INDEX aims to highlight a few common facts and phenomena – or what we might describe as crucial “acupuncture” points,– which give an indication of the level of interculturality of a city, and which enable the beginning of a discussion whereby one city can be compared with another. However, it is not the intention of the project to use the INDEX for the simple ‘ranking’ of cities. Rather it should be used to encourage greater self-reflection, learning and improvement.
Since the INDEX is conceived as a development (bench-learning) tool to inform and support city policy-making and not as a ranking tool, its results are communicated directly to the cities and not made available to the public. The INDEX report is accompanied by a set of recommendations and suggestions as to where to look for inspiration and good practice.
APPENDIX I
Quick self-assessment exercise
What is it like in your city?
|
NON-POLICY |
GUESTWORKER POLICY |
ASSIMILATIONIST POLICY |
MULTICULTURAL POLICY |
INTERCULTURAL POLICY |
|
|
Minority group |
State ignores them |
Informal co-operation on a limited number of issues |
State does not recognise them |
State supports them as agents of empowerment |
State supports them as agents of integration |
|
Labour Market |
Ignore. Turn a blind eye to black market activity |
Minimal regulation – limited vocational assistance |
General vocational support – non-ethnic criteria |
Anti-discrimination policy; Affirmative action on training and hiring |
Anti-discrimination policy; intercultural competence and linguistic skills emphasised |
|
Housing |
Ignore need for migrant housing. React to crisis with temporary shelters |
Short-term housing solutions; minimal regulation of private rental sector |
Equal access to social housing – non-ethnic criteria. Ignore ethnic discrimination in housing market |
Anti-discriminatory letting policy. Affirmative access to social housing |
Anti-discriminatory letting policy. Ethnic monitoring. Encouragement for ethnic housing mix |
|
Education |
Ad hoc recognition of migrant children |
Enrol migrant children in schools |
Emphasis on national language, history, culture. State ignores or does away with supplementary schooling |
Special support for diverse schools. Mother tongue language support. Religious and cultural education. |
National and mother tongue/ culture teaching. Intercultural competence for all. Desegregation. |
|
Policing |
Migrants treated as security problem |
Police as agents of migrant regulation, monitoring, deportation |
High profile policing of migrant areas |
Police as social workers. Proactive anti-racism enforcement |
Police as agents of inter-ethnic conflict management |
|
Public awareness |
Migrants as a potential threat |
Migrants as economically useful but of no political, social or cultural significance |
Campaigns to encourage tolerance of minorities but intolerance of those not assimilating |
‘Celebrate diversity’ festivals and city branding campaigns |
Campaigns to emphasise intercultural togetherness |
|
Urban development |
Ignore emergence of ethnic enclaves – disperse if crisis arises |
Ethnic enclaves tolerated but considered temporary |
Ethnic enclaves considered an urban problem. Dispersal policy and gentrification. Oppose symbolic use of space |
Recognise enclaves and ethnic community leadership. Area based regeneration. Symbolic recognition e.g. minarets |
Encouragement of ethnically mixed neighbourhoods and public space. Conflict management a key skill for city officials and NGOs |
|
Governance and citizenship |
No rights or recognition |
No rights or recognition |
Facilitate naturalisation. No ethnic consultative structures |
Community leadership, consultative structures and resource allocation ethnically-based |
Encouragement of cross-cultural leadership, asso- ciation and consultation. Acknowledgement of hybridity. Emphasis on functional not symbolic use of space |
It should come as no surprise if, having conducted this exercise, you find that different functional areas are operating in rather different ways, perhaps owing to the presence of a strong individual or team or in response to a particular crisis of opportunity. You may find some areas are already operating in an intercultural way, whilst others behave rather differently.
The categories outlined above are not exclusive and you may find it helpful to expand the table with other policy areas and complete the boxes yourself.
APPENDIX II
Key stakeholders to be consulted and involved in the preparation of the intercultural city strategy.
- The Mayor
- City Council political representative(s) in charge of integration/diversity or related issues and chief policy officers
- Council equality, diversity and / or inclusion / cohesion representative(s)
- Council community services representative, including for cultural and arts policy and initiatives
- Council project managers of relevant programmes or initiatives (including city planning, education, housing, economy/employment, public services etc.)
- Council project manager/coordinator for the Intercultural Cities project
- Some key individuals or groups – civil society organisations – from a range of key cultural communities expected to be key beneficiaries of the initiative, in particular migrant/minority groups
- Some key individuals from local media organisations, educational and cultural operators.
- Individuals (artists, journalists, entrepreneurs and other professionals) with critical thinking, unusual ideas and leadership drive and commitment to diversity and intercultural relations
- If relevant, representatives of religious communities and organisations of non-believers
- Businesses, trade unions, housing associations and any other relevant partners
- Organisations carrying out integration/intercultural projects on the ground
- Researchers and/or statisticians
While consulting specific departments separately (both in writing and through specifically organised meetings) has a value in helping to explore issues in detail, organising cross-service meetings, involving practitioners and civil society makes it possible to open up perspectives and eventually create new relations and alliances which cut across institutional silos and encourage lasting trust and partnership between the authorities and civil society organisations.
[1] http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/intercultural/Source/Pub_White_Paper/White%20Paper_final_revised_EN.pdf
[5] The Intercultural City: Planning for Diversity Advantage, Phil Wood and Charles Landry, 2007
[6] Berlin Neukölln (Germany), Izhevsk (Russian Federation), Lublin (Poland), Lyon (France), Melitopol (Ukraine), Neuchâtel (Switzerland), Oslo(Norway), Patras (Greece), Reggio Emilia (Italy), Subotica (Serbia), Tilburg (The Netherlands).
[7] Botkyrka (Sweden), Copenhagen (Denmark), Geneva (Switzerland), Dublin (Ireland), Lisbon (Portugal), Limassol (Cyprus), London Lewisham (UK), Pécs (Hungary), San Sebastian (Spain)
[9] http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/cultureheritage/culture/Cities/Publication/EducationColes_Vincent.pdf
[10] http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/cultureheritage/culture/Cities/Publication/OsloDrammen.pdf
[11] http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/cultureheritage/culture/cities/Publication/Entrepreneurfinal2.pdf
[12] http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/linguistic/Source/Source2010_ForumGeneva/MigrantChildrenConceptPaper_EN.doc
[13] http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/linguistic/Source/Migr2010_BrochureB_en.doc
[14] Saunders, Doug (2010) Arrival City: How the Largest Migration in History is Reshaping Our World. London, Heinemann.
[15] Easterly, William (2006) The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good. Penguin Press HC.
[17] Andrew J Jordan and Andrea Lenschow (2008), ‘Integrating the environment for sustainable development: an introduction’, in Jordan and Lenschow (eds), Innovation in Environmental Policy? Integrating the Environment for Sustainability (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar), 3-23
[19] Sierens, Sven et Van Avermaet, Piet, Language diversity in education: evolving from multilingual education to functional multilingual learning, Centre for Diversity and Learning, Gand University
[21] http://www.ne.ch/neat/site/jsp/rubrique/rubrique.jsp?StyleType=bleu&CatId=1428
[22] http://www.ne.ch/neat/site/jsp/rubrique/rubrique.jsp?StyleType=marron&DocId=12956
[23] http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/cultureheritage/culture/Cities/Publication/BookCoE24-Neuchatel.pdf